#russian nationals 2018

[figureskatingcostumes]

Alena Leonova’s short program costume at the 2018 NHK Trophy, 2019 Cup of Russia Final and 2019 Russian Championships.

(Sources: 1, 2 and 3)

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #29

July 26-August 2 2024

President Biden announced his plan to reform the Supreme Court and make sure no President is above the law. The conservative majority on the court ruled that Trump has "absolute immunity" from any prosecution for "official acts" while he was President. In response President Biden is calling for a constitutional amendment to make it clear that Presidents aren't above the law and don't have immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. In response to a wide ranging corruption scandal involving Justice Clarence Thomas, President Biden called on Congress to pass a legally binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court. The code would force Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political actions, and force them to recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have conflicts of interest. President Biden also endorsed the idea of term limits for the Justices.

The Biden Administration sent out an email to everyone who has a federal student loan informing them of upcoming debt relief. The debt relief plan will bring the total number of a borrowers who've gotten relief from the Biden-Harris Administration to 30 million. The plan is due to be finalized this fall, and the Department of Education wanted to alert people early to allow them to be ready to quickly take advantage of it when it was in place and get relief as soon as possible.

President Biden announced that the federal government would step in and protect the pension of 600,000 Teamsters. Under the American Rescue Plan, passed by President Biden and the Democrats with no Republican votes, the government was empowered to bail out Union retirement funds which in recent years have faced devastating cut of up to 75% in some cases, leaving retired union workers in desperate situations. The Teamster union is just the latest in a number of such pension protections the President has done in office.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris oversaw the dramatic release of American hostages from Russia. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan held since 2018, Russian-American reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Alsu Kurmasheva convicted of criticizing the Russian Military, were all released from captivity and returned to the US at around midnight August 2nd. They were greeted on the tarmac by the President and Vice-President and their waiting families. The deal also secured the release of German medical worker Rico Krieger sentenced to death in Belarus, Russian-British opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, and 11 Russians convicted of opposing the war against Ukraine or being involved in Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption organization. Early drafts of the hostage deal were meant to include Navalny before his death in Russian custody early this year.

A new Biden Administration rule banning discrimination against LGBT students takes effect, but faces major Republican resistance. The new rule declares that Title IX protects Queer students from discrimination in public schools and any college that takes federal funds. The new rule also expands protections for victims of sexual misconduct and pregnant or parenting students. However Republican resistance means the rule can't take effect nation wide. Lawsuits from Republican controlled states, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, means the new protections won't come into effect those states till the case is ruled on likely in a Supreme Court ruling. The Biden administration crafted these Title IX rules to reflect the Supreme Court's 2020 Bostock case.

The Biden administration awarded $2 billion to black and minority farmers who were the victims of historic discrimination. Historically black farmers have been denied important loans from the USDA, or given smaller amounts than white farmers. This massive investment will grant 23,000 minority farmers between $10,000 and $500,000 each and a further 20,000 people who wanted to start farms by were improperly denied the loans they needed between $3,500-$6,000 to get started. Most payments went to farmers in Mississippi and Alabama.

The Biden Administration took an important step to stop the criminalization of poverty by changing child safety guidelines so that poverty alone isn't grounds for taking a child into foster care. Studies show that children able to stay with parents or other family have much better outcomes then those separated. Many states have already removed poverty from their guidelines when it comes to removing children from the home, and the HHS guidelines push the remaining states to do the same.

Vice-President Harris announced the Biden Administration's agreement to a plan by North Carolina to forgive the state's medical debt. The plan by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper would forgive the medical debt of 2 million people in the state. North Carolina has the 3rd highest rate of medical debt in the nation. Vice-President Harris applauded the plan, pointing out that the Biden Administration has forgiven $650 million dollars worth of medical debt so far with plans to forgive up to $7 billion by 2026. The Vice-President unveiled plans to exclude medical debt from credit scores and issued a call for states and local governments to forgive debt, like North Carolina is, last month.

The Department of Transportation put forward a new rule to bank junk fees for family air travel. The new rule forces airlines to seat parents next to their children, with no extra cost. Currently parents are forced to pay extra to assure they are seated next to their children, no matter what age, if they don't they run the risk of being separated on a long flight. Airlines would be required to seat children age 13 and under with their parent or accompanying adult at no extra charge.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it is giving $3.5 billion to combat homelessness. This represents the single largest one year investment in fighting homelessness in HUD's history. The money will be distributed by grants to local organizations and programs. HUD has a special focus on survivors of domestic violence, youth homeless, and people experiencing the unique challenges of homelessness in rural areas.

The Treasury Department announced that Pennsylvania and New Mexico would be joining the IRS' direct file program for 2025. The program was tested as a pilot in a number of states in 2024, saving 140,000 tax payers $5.6 million in filing charges and getting tax returns of $90 million. The program, paid for by President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, will be available to all 50 states, but Republicans strong object. Pennsylvania and New Mexico join Oregon and New Jersey in being new states to join.

Bonus: President Biden with the families of the released hostages calling their loved ones on the plane out of Russia

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

On 7/31/2019 Trump has a private meeting with Putin. On 8/3/2019, just 3 days after his private meeting with Putin Trump issues a request for a list of top US spies. By 2021 the CIA reports an unusually high number of their agents are being captured and/or being murdered. During the search executed at Mar A Lago the FBI find nore documents with lists of U.S. informants on them.

A Timeline

• FBI wiretapped Russian gambling ring headquartered at Trump Tower for two years - March 21, 2017

• Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador - May 15, 2017

• Trump, Putin Meet For 2 Hours In Helsinki - July 16, 2018

• Rand Paul Goes To Russia And Delivers Letter For Trump, Marking Our Era Of Irony - August 9, 2018

• Following the Money: Trump and Russia-Linked Transactions From the Campaign to the Presidential Inauguration - December 17, 2018

• The US extracted a top spy from Russia after Trump revealed classified information to the Russians in an Oval Office meeting - September 10, 2019

• Trump’s Loose Lips Force US to Extract Spy From Kremlin - September 10, 2019

• Was Mar-a-Lago Trespasser a Tourist or a Spy? A Judge Said Her Story Didn’t Hold Up. - November 25, 2019

• Trump downplays massive cyber hack on government after Pompeo links attack to Russia - December 19, 2020

• Russia has been cultivating Trump as an asset for 40 years, former KGB spy says - January 29, 2021

• There was Trump-Russia collusion — and Trump pardoned the colluder - April 17, 2021

• Longtime GOP operatives charged with funneling Russian national’s money to Trump, RNC - September 20, 2021

• Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants - October 5, 2021

• Files Seized From Trump Are Part of Espionage Act Inquiry - August 12, 2022

• Ex-Clinton aide implies 'President of France' file found at Trump's home during Mar-a-Lago raid could be valuable to Putin as 'kompromat' - August 13, 2022

• Inventing Anna: The tale of a fake heiress, Mar-a-Lago, and an FBI investigation - August 22, 2022

• Russians used a US firm to funnel funds to GOP in 2018. Dems say the FEC let them get away with it - October 30, 2022

• Trump makes shocking comments about trusting Putin over US 'intelligence lowlifes' - January 31, 2023

• Russia's Prigozhin admits links to what US says was election meddling troll farm - February 14, 2023

• GOP operative sentenced to 18 months for funneling Russian money to Trump- February 17, 2023

• Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources - October 5, 2023

• 'So appalled': What witnesses told special counsel about Trump's handling of classified info while still president - April 24, 2024

🤔🤔🤔

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Nearly as soon as the Bolsheviks took power, they began to execute anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries, most of whom had fought alongside the Bolsheviks in the Revolution. They also purged elements of their own party deemed "anti-Soviet" or "counter-revolutionary." This state repression was well documented by the Soviet government, but here we have chosen to use journals and letters of those affected. Lithuanian-American Jewish anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman describe the Bolshevik betrayal: The systematic man-hunt of anarchists [...] with the result that every prison and jail in Soviet Russia filled with our comrades, fully coincided in time and spirit with Lenin's speech at the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party. On that occasion Lenin announced that the most merciless war must be declared against what he termed "the petty bourgeois anarchist elements" which, according to him, are developing even within the Communist Party [...] On the very day that Lenin made the above statement, numbers of anarchists were arrested all over the country, without the least cause or explanation. The conditions of their imprisonment are exceptionally vile and brutal. (Boni, 253)

[henk-heijmans]

Giant otter is eating fish in water, Pantanal National Park, Brazil, 2018 - by Andrey Gudkov, Russian

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Football is the ballet of the masses.

- Dmitri Shostakovich

Dancers of the Bolshoi ballet backstage during a performance watching the Russian national team win a penalty shootout during the World Cup 2018.

[dreamcast641]

SCP OC: Claire Ekaterina Makarova

I decided to make an actual detailed post about Claire, finally. I created her in august 2018 and I got a lot of time to develop here and I'm really, really satisfied of how she turned out to be.

--------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL INFORMATIONS:

Full Name: Claire Ekaterina Makarova

Aliases/nicknames: Stoat (callsign), shortie, shortstack

Age: 26-30 years old

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her

Sexual orientation: Demiromantic/demisexual and pansexual

Date of birth:November 2nd

Place of birth: Unknown but it's somewhere in the USA

Current residence: site 5c

Nationality: American with slavic origins

Spoken Languages: American English (main), Russian ( ONLY with her dad) and American sign language (ASL)

Affiliations/organizations: SCP foundation

Occupation: Mobile Task force Beta-7 ''Maz hatters'' operator, virologist/biologist when not on field, ISD (internal security department) agent.

Rank: unknown

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

APPEARANCE

BUILD: A bit chubby

— Claire is a buxom woman who has curves all over her body, wide hips and a slight bit of fat in her tummy.

— She particularly cares about her image, especially when it comes to taking care of her body.She trains regularly in the small gym made available by the site 5c, focusing on arms and legs, parts of the body that are fundamental to her for work. It takes muscle to hold a rifle that weighs almost half her weight on her so as not to wobble on the recoil.

-----

SCARS: All over her body

— Claire has many, if not too many, wounds all over her body. From cuts to bruises to burns and even gunshot wounds.

— Her little patient behavior and her indifference has led her over the years to participate in many fights, whether they are initiated by her or are part of her job, when it comes to fighting she has always been in the front row. Not caring about the size and danger of whoever is in front of her. This has led Claire to have countless wounds on her body, many of them being stab wounds, a gunshot on her right shoulder, a large burn on her left shoulder and as many bruises..

------

VOICE: silvery/soft spoken

— slow spoken and not too high voice but at times decisive when needed.

— It's almost as if her voice doesn't match her body. With her character like hers, those around her expect an annoying redundant high-pitched voice to split the eardrums. Hers is an almost calm voice, not too high and maternal.

-----

EYES: Grey/blue

— blue eyes so undersaturated they look gray.

— she inherited light eyes from both parents, but the mother's gene seemed to dominate between the two. Both have blue eyes but Claire's are less saturated, almost gray as opposed to her mother's, blue as ice

-------

FASHION: casual

— casual, doesn't really care for fashion.

— When she's not working, claire usually wears the first thing she finds in her closet, preferring loose-fitting clothes that don't show too much of her body shapes.

------------

More about her aspect:

-Claire has mixed vitiligo all over her body. It started when she was just 5 to 6 years old and it spreaded everywhere;

-Her vitiligo not only affected her skin but also her hair, eyelashes and eyebrow;

-She is only 5'1 ft or 154 cm in height.

FAVORITES

-Color: Black

-Food: Raw Salmon

-Drink: Chamomille with honey

-Song: Ecoute Cherie (vendredi sur Mer)

-Flower: Nightsky petunia

-Hairstyle: messy bun

------------------

PHOBIAS

-Autophobia: also called monophobia, isolophobia, or eremophobia, is the specific phobia or a morbid fear or dread of oneself or of being alone, isolated, abandoned, and ignored;

-athazagoraphobia: When a person has this condition, there is an extreme fear of being forgotten, or of not remembering someone or something. It may also include a fear of being ignored or replaced;

-Atychiphobia:is an intense fear of failure

-Arachnophobia: fear of spiders

-------------------------------------------------

PERSONALITY:

-Moral alignment: Chaotic Neutral

-Myers-Briggs: ENTJ-T

POSITIVE TRAITS

- Serious and efficient but also considerate in the role she covers inside the foundation walls: She makes everyone feel included in her squad no matter what. She is always willing to help them, no one is left behind.

-Observant...a bit too much. If there is something that her training with the ISD thought her is to be aware constantly of her sorroundings. No details is going unnoticed in her presence.

-Gentle and caring with close ones. She pours her heart with who she loves.

-Practical smart. Let's say that she is good at improvise when needed.

-Respected without using fear

NEGATIVE TRAITS

-Claire's past and experiences have led her to be inconsiderate of herself, and those closest to her tend to see it for how expressive she is, without needing her to be alone to show how she really feels. she is a woman with a thousand complexes, her self-esteem has been destroyed and under her feet. She can't be really sure about anything she does especially if it affects those around her too. She refuses any leadership position, unwilling to take responsibility for any deaths that may occur under her leadership.

-So low is her self-esteem that she can't even see the value of her life, risking it every day to protect others at the expense of her own. She has seen death right in her eyes so many times that she no longer fears it. She is not afraid to die but at the same time the idea of being forgotten and replaced, as she has already seen happen to her other deceased colleagues, puts a shiver down her spine.

-Claire gets heated pretty easily, leading her to not think straight when she is outraged.

-She tends to distance people from herself due to her trust issues. It really takes time for her to open up to someone.

-Absolute stubborn. Claire does not listen when she is convinced of something.

TRIVIA:

-She absolutely love when her friends makes hand-made stuff for her. She keep them like it's the most precious thing in the world;

-It happens that Claire goes for some days to negaseattle to visit her adopted brother Ira and helping him with the clone kids (check more on Raddagher's author page on the wiki);

-She has a yellow ringneck parrot named banana. He is her emotional support animal;

-BPD (bordeline personality disorder) that she is getting treated for and is under enough control for her to be operative;

-She loves reading almost everything especially if it's related to her job;

-One hell of a cook. She is very, very good in the kitchen;

-She smells like peaches and chocolate;

-Aggressive and very skilled in combat. Knife is her specialization;

-Uses stealth, skills and the enviroment over the strenght;

-Good swimmer, loves using water to her advantage in fights by drowning or exhausting people;

-Survivor's guilt.

SUMMARY OF HER STORY (STILL NOT SO DONE)

It is not known for certain where Claire and her twin brother Dmitry were born, it is only known that they came to light somewhere hidden in the United States of America.

Raised in the hostile environment of the foundation but with the loving care of their mother Mandy Ross, a former nurse in the US Navy. Their father? Locked in the same site where they were born, metal walls separating this potentially dangerous man due to the toxic, potentially lethal nature of his body.

In the early years of their lives, the twins immediately reveal themselves as curious troublemakers, always looking for other children like them to socialize with and will end up bonding closely with one of them in particular: Ira Watts, whom they will consider for life as a brother.

Mandy, for reasons still unknown to them, decides to leave them and the foundation to join the GOC. it was this event that unleashed in her an immense fear of abandonment. Left to their own devices, Claire was the one she had to mature early to take care of her two brothers.

At just 14, the three were separated by the foundation to be introduced to their respective careers.

While Dmitry continued his medical and psychiatric studies, Claire had to stay on that site with Ira to begin her training to join one of the mobile task forces.

''Mobile Task Forces (MTFs) are elite units comprised of personnel drawn from across the Foundation and are mobilized to deal with specific threats or situations that sometimes exceed the operational capacity or expertise of regular field personnel and — as their name suggests — may be relocated between facilities or locations as they are needed. Mobile Task Force personnel represent the "best of the best" of the Foundation.''

And with this clarification, let's say that the training Claire had to undergo was hard and exhausting. She pushed to her limits so many times by her serious and rigid mentor that she was assigned to reach high, real high expectations.

To be ''the best of the best'' she had to shed all of her blood and her will. She failed many times but thanks to this she also managed to learn from her mistakes and correct herself, perhaps becoming probably one of the best students on the site...if not for her rebelious behavior.

Training wasn't Claire's only focus in those years: she was studying biology and virology because of the task force she decided to join, the beta-7. Her knowledge will prove to be fundamental in the future.

Her training and studies ended as soon as they began. At just 22, claire was already serving as a member of mobile task force beta-7 at a different site.

During her years at the site, now with her brother Dmitry, the two were approached by a man from the Internal Security Department (ISD) who was determined to recruit them as they were loyal members of the foundation. The two naively accepted and it was that meeting and that assignment that led them to site 5c where they still reside nowdays.

SITE 5C STORY LINE

(coming soon)

[zvaigzdelasas]

The ȘOR Party [...] was a populist political party in Moldova.[13] Known from its foundation in 1998 until October 2016 as the Socio-Political Movement "Equality"[...],[14][15] the party held Eurosceptic and Russophilic stances.[16]

The party was closed down in 2023 having been declared unconstitutional.

The party was founded in 1998 by Moldovan politician Valerii Klimenco as the "Socio-Political Movement "Equality".[17][...]

In 2015, the party decided to nominate Ilan Shor for Mayor of the town of Orhei. [...] In October 2016, Shor was elected president of the party, which was renamed Șor Party. In June 2017, the party President, Ilan Shor was sentenced to 7.5 years in jail for fraud. He broke house arrest and fled the country in 2019 whilst appealing the sentence.[20] On 1 December 2018, the party joined the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe.[21][...]

The party organized a Victory Day parade in Chișinău on 9 May 2019.[27][...]

The Șor Party was the main instigator of the 2022–2023 Moldovan protests.[28][...]

On 8 November 2022, the Moldovan government requested the constitutional court to initiate proceedings for the outlawing of the party in Moldova, due to it allegedly promoting the interests of a foreign state (Russia) and harming the independence and sovereignty of the country.[29][30]

On 13 April 2023, the appeal court doubled the sentence of party President Ilan Shor in a case linked to the theft of $1 billion in bank assets as well as money laundering, breach of trust, and fraud to 15 years in prison in absentia and froze his assets. Shor was living in Israel at the time of the court ruling after having fled Moldova in 2019.[31][...]

On 19 June 2023, the Șor Party was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Moldova.[35][36][37] [...]

On 31 July, the Moldovan parliament voted in favour of banning the leaders of the dissolved Șor Party – including Ilan Shor – from standing in elections for a period of five years.[41] In October the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that Article 16 of the Electoral Code is unconstitutional and that former members of the Șor Party can stand for elections.[42][...]

The Party's 2019 programme introduced the following points:[46]

○ Free universal health care.

○ Free education including higher education. Increasing the size and scope of disability benefits, maternity benefits and retirement pensions.

○ The creation of modernised collective farms to work alongside the private sector. Active state intervention in the spheres of infrastructure, transport, energy, communications, housing, pharmaceuticals, etc.

○ The nationalization of foreign-owned energy companies.

○ A commitment to law and order including both reinstating the death penalty for particularly dangerous criminals and addressing the underlying socioeconomic issues that may cause crime.

○ A commitment to Moldovan independence and military neutrality.

The opening paragraphs of the party's 2008 election programme stated that it viewed the average person's quality of life as superior under the Soviet Union when compared to modern times. It further stated that it viewed Moldova's alleged socio-economic problems as relating to Moldova's negative relationship with the Russian Federation.[47]

[solarbird]

What they’re burying with the push to remove Biden

I wrote this yesterday, before they pushed Biden out. All this is still true.

Here’s what the major/legacy press are burying with wall-to-wall coverage of the massive billionaire-fuelled push to remove Biden:

The sheer, raw, overt racism and white supremacy of the Republican base. Not just mass booing a non-white speaker at the convention, but condemning their own VP nominee for not having a White wife. They’ll shut up about the latter, but we really, really shouldn’t.

That this includes outright calls to remove 15 to 20 million people in an ethnic purge. That’s not implied; that’s pre-printed official signs at the convention.

It will require a mass militarisation; Trump has been readying his supporters for horrific images for the last few months at his rallies. Popehat discusses the inevitable result: “We’re going to be an occupied nation. Detention of citizens and lawful residents is inevitable and in fact clearly intended. Large-scale violence against immigrants, suspected immigrants, and bystanders is inevitable and clearly intended.“

Citizenship won’t protect you; they intend to strip citizenship from naturalised citizens, too. They already had a task for on how to do it, back in 2018; this time, they will implement, and the Republican Supreme Court will let them.

Christian Nationalist Speaker of the House Mike Johnson backs this ethnic purge, by the way. When people say it’s “just Trump being Trump” point them at all this reality.

White nationalist speakers at the convention? Check! Core MAGAts calling Vice-President Harris a “coloured” “DEI hire”? Check!

The near-unity of his campaign with Project 2025, and all it entails – including not just his announced plans to bring its contributors to his next administration but six members of his previous cabinet, and his own chosen VP, JD Vance.

Medium has a whole page up on how to track Project 2025 contributors and involvement in the previous and a possible future Trump administration.

Did I mention that JD Vance supports Russia in its imperial invasion of Ukraine? Russian domestic propagandaists are downright giddy with his nomination.

And that he considers rape an “inconvenience” and that victims should be forced to carry and deliver their rapists’ babies?

And that police should be able to monitor medical records to search for possible abortions?

And that he praised Alex Jones and InfoWars as a “truth teller” – the same Alex Jones who directed hate and violence against parents of slaughtered children for years, until finally brought down in court?

The complete and open embrace of violence by him and his base – going back to 2016. The insurrection of 2020 was only a midpoint, not a culmination. From the national to the political to the personal, the GOP is a party of violence. So much so, that even a lot of old-line Republicans are talking about it openly.

Too bad that doesn’t include the legacy press. Too bad that doesn’t include the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or CNN, or so many others.

But it can include you.

That’s what’s needed right now. You, doing the job of that press, making sure everybody knows the real stakes of what’s going on.

Yes, there is some real support from Democrats for removing Biden. It wouldn’t be getting anywhere without the major donor and press frenzy, but some of it’s real. And I absolutely will back whoever comes out of this nonsense, as must we all.

No matter how mad we may and may not be about it. Am I clear on that? No matter how mad.

Because this Republican nightmare is what the press aren’t covering -it’s not even all of it, just some important highlights – all while instead going wall-to-wall 24-by-seven on this nomination fiasco.

Keep plugging away, team. It’s up to us to make up that gap.

And always remember – we win this, if we do the work. We win this, if we fight.

106 days remain.

[comradesaucegay]

i had a friend who loves talking politics and when they were blindly worshipping ukraines military i tried to tell them about ukraines militarys white supremacy they got worked up and indirectly accused me of 'siding with russia'. then behind my back they went to a mutual friend saying that russians are spreading propaganda about ukrainians being white supremacists. just recently they came up to me saying that right wingers in the us are siding with russia and putin against ukraine. feels like im going crazy

i'm sorry about your friend. idk if it's worth trying to argue with them, but if they approach you about this again...

BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict

Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians

Truthout, 2015: The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made

The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda

The Guardian, 2017: 'I want to bring up a warrior': Ukraine's far-right children's camp – video

WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know

Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem

The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine

[figureskatingcostumes]

Serafima Sakhanovich skating to Concierto de Aranjuez for her free program at the 2018 Russian Championships. Illusion fabric creating a dress that defies it all.

(© Maria Kateshova)

[tomorrowusa]

Trump was putty in Putin's hands. That's the assessment of Gen. H.R. McMaster – a former national security adviser to Trump.

Vladimir Putin exploited Donald Trump’s “ego and insecurities” to exert an almost mesmeric hold over the former US president, who refused to entertain any negative evaluation of the autocratic Russian leader from his own staff, and ultimately fired his national security adviser, HR McMaster, over it. The bold assessment of Trump’s fealty to Putin comes in McMaster’s book At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, published by HarperCollins and arriving on 27 August. The Guardian obtained a copy. “After over a year in this job, I cannot understand Putin’s hold on Trump,” McMaster recalls saying in the memoir covering the turbulent 457 days the now retired general served as national security adviser from February 2017 until he was effectively fired by tweet in April 2018. The comment, to McMaster’s wife, Katie, came in the aftermath of the poisoning in the UK by Putin’s agents of Sergei Skripal, a Russian former intelligence officer, and his daughter, in March 2018. [ ... ] In reality, McMaster says, Putin’s apparent simpering over Trump was a calculated effort by the Russian leader to exploit the president and drive a wedge between him and hawkish advisers in Washington DC such as McMaster urging the US to take a harder line with the Kremlin. “Putin, a ruthless former KGB operator, played to Trump’s ego and insecurities with flattery,” McMaster writes. “Putin had described Trump as ‘a very outstanding person, talented, without any doubt’, and Trump had revealed his vulnerability to this approach, his affinity for strongmen, and his belief that he alone could forge a good relationship with Putin.

Weird Donald thinks he comes across as strong by hanging around with tyrants like Putin. In fact, he's just fawning for their approval because he's so personally insecure.

It's bad for American national security when a rogue Russian dictator finds it so easy to manipulate a US president. Vladimir Putin will pull out all the stops in manipulating the media to put his patsy back into the Oval Office.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Damita Menezes at NewsNation:

(NewsNation) — A man who allegedly pointed an AK-47-style rifle through the fence at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach on Sunday, while the former president was golfing nearby, has been taken into custody, authorities say. The man, identified to NewsNation by a law enforcement source as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, is described as a white male. He is believed to be the suspect who was crouched in bushes near the golf club perimeter, armed with a weapon equipped with a scope. Two backpacks and a Go-Pro camera were also found with the firearm near the perimeter from which the suspect had fled. Local authorities said the gunman was about 400 yards to 500 yards away from Trump. Routh was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, according to online North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg told NewsNation that the suspect was not previously on local law enforcement’s radar. Routh, who reportedly has ties to North Carolina and Hawaii, had made “bizarre” social media posts about Ukraine before the incident. Federal authorities have taken over the case, with Aronberg’s office standing down. The state attorney anticipates Routh will face charges related to domestic terrorism and weapons offenses, though specific charges have not been announced. At approximately 1:30 p.m. local time, authorities received a call reporting shots fired at the golf course where Trump was playing a round of golf. A witness told police the suspect fled the scene in a black Nissan and provided investigators with photos of the suspect’s license plate. Using that photo, authorities say they put out a “a very urgent BOLO (Be On the Lookout) for the suspect’s vehicle and plates. [...]

Routh’s social media posts

Social media posts allegedly belonging to Routh indicate he was a believer in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and he had posted that he had voted for Trump in 2016 but was disappointed with him after the fact, expressing support for Tulsi Gabbard in various posts. Records show Routh moved in 2018 to Kaaawa, Hawaii, where he and his son operated a company building sheds, according to an archived version of the webpage for the business.

In June 2020, he made a post on X directed at then-President Trump to say he would win reelection if he issued an executive order for the Justice Department to prosecute police misconduct. However, in recent years, his posts suggest he soured on Trump, and he expressed support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. In July, following the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, Routh urged Biden and Harris to visit those wounded in the shooting at the hospital and to attend the funeral of a former fire chief killed at the rally. Voter records show he registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. Federal campaign finance records show Routh made 19 small political donations totaling $140 since 2019 using his Hawaii address to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.

Routh’s Ukrainian ties

The New York Times said it interviewed him for a feature on pro-Ukrainian foreign fighters last year. The Times said Routh traveled to Ukraine in 2022 to recruit ex-Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight for the embattled nation. Routh frequently posted on social media about the war in Ukraine and had a website where he sought to raise money and recruit volunteers to go to Kyiv to join the fight against the Russian invasion.

The 2nd Trump assassination attempt shooter was Ryan Wesley Routh.

Routh has expressed political views across the spectrum, such as COVID conspiracies, support for Ukraine and Taiwan, and backing of Donald Trump in 2016 before turning against him in favor of Tulsi Gabbard in 2020 and this year, a Vivek Ramaswamy/Nikki Haley unity ticket.

See Also:

HuffPost: Authorities Begin Probing Life Of Suspect In Apparent Assassination Attempt Against Trump

The Guardian: Who is the man reportedly detained in the Trump ‘assassination attempt’?

Axios: What we know about the suspect in the Trump golf club shooting incident

[reading-writing-revolution]

🚨🚨🚨

A group of Russian nationals were able to donate to newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson's campaign in 2018 by funneling the money through a U.S. company.

Mike Johnson's Campaign Contributions From Company Tied to Russia

[mariacallous]

Over nearly a decade, the hacker group within Russia's GRU military intelligence agency known as Sandworm has launched some of the most disruptive cyberattacks in history against Ukraine's power grids, financial system, media, and government agencies. Signs now point to that same usual suspect being responsible for sabotaging a major mobile provider for the country, cutting off communications for millions and even temporarily sabotaging the air raid warning system in the capital of Kyiv.

On Tuesday, a cyberattack hit Kyivstar, one of Ukraine's largest mobile and internet providers. The details of how that attack was carried out remain far from clear. But it “resulted in essential services of the company’s technology network being blocked,” according to a statement posted by Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-UA.

Kyivstar's CEO, Oleksandr Komarov, told Ukrainian national television on Tuesday, according to Reuters, that the hacking incident “significantly damaged [Kyivstar's] infrastructure [and] limited access.”

“We could not counter it at the virtual level, so we shut down Kyivstar physically to limit the enemy's access,” he continued. “War is also happening in cyberspace. Unfortunately, we have been hit as a result of this war.”

The Ukrainian government hasn't yet publicly attributed the cyberattack to any known hacker group—nor have any cybersecurity companies or researchers. But on Tuesday, a Ukrainian official within its SSSCIP computer security agency, which oversees CERT-UA, pointed out in a message to reporters that a group known as Solntsepek had claimed credit for the attack in a Telegram post, and noted that the group has been linked to the notorious Sandworm unit of Russia's GRU.

“We, the Solntsepek hackers, take full responsibility for the cyber attack on Kyivstar. We destroyed 10 computers, more than 4 thousand servers, all cloud storage and backup systems,” reads the message in Russian, addressed to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and posted to the group's Telegram account. The message also includes screenshots that appear to show access to Kyivstar's network, though this could not be verified. “We attacked Kyivstar because the company provides communications to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as government agencies and law enforcement agencies of Ukraine. The rest of the offices helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine, get ready!”

Solntsepek has previously been used as a front for the hacker group Sandworm, the Moscow-based Unit 74455 of Russia's GRU, says John Hultquist, the head of threat intelligence at Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant and a longtime tracker of the group. He declined, however, to say which of Solntsepek’s network intrusions have been linked to Sandworm in the past, suggesting that some of those intrusions may not yet be public. “It's a group that has claimed credit for incidents we know were carried out by Sandworm,” Hultquist says, adding that Solntsepek's Telegram post bolsters his previous suspicions that Sandworm was responsible. "Given their consistent focus on this type of activity, it's hard to be surprised that another major disruption is linked to them.”

If Solntsepek is a front for Sandworm, it would be far from the first. Over its years of targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, the GRU unit has used a wide variety of covers, hiding behind false flags such as independent hacktivist groups and cybercriminal ransomware gangs. It even attempted to frame North Korea for its attack on the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Today, Kyivstar countered some of Solntsepek's claims in a post on X, writing that “we assure you that the rumors about the destruction of our ‘computers and servers’ are simply fake.” The company had also written on the platform that it hoped to restore its network's operations by Wednesday, adding that it's working with the Ukrainian government and law enforcement agencies to investigate the attack. Kyivstar's parent company, Veon, headquartered in Amsterdam, didn't respond to WIRED's request for more information.

While the fog of war continues to obscure the exact scale of the Kyivstar incident, it already appears to be one of the most disruptive cyberattacks to have hit Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022. In the year that followed, Russia launched more data-destroying wiper attacks on Ukrainian networks than have been seen anywhere else in the world in the history of computing, though most have had far smaller effects than the Kyivstar intrusion. Other major Russian cyberattacks to hit Ukraine over the past 20 months include a cyberattack that crippled thousands of Viasat satellite modems across the country and other parts of Europe, now believed to have been carried out by the GRU. Another incident of cybersabotage, which Mandiant attributes to Sandworm specifically, caused a blackout in a Ukrainian city just as it was being hit by missile strikes, potentially hampering defensive efforts.

It's not yet clear if the Kyivstar attack—if it was indeed carried out by a Russian state-sponsored hacker group—was merely intended to sow chaos and confusion among the company's customers, or if it had a more specific tactical intention, such as disguising intelligence-gathering within Kyivstar's network, hampering Ukrainian military communications, or silencing its alerts to civilians about air raids.

“Telecoms offer intelligence opportunities, but they're also very effective targets for disruption," says Mandiant's Hultquist. “You can cause significant disruption to people's lives. And you can even have military impacts.”

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Former Brazilian President and head of the New Development Bank, Dilma Rousseff, receives the Friendship Medal, the highest Chinese honor

NBD president highlights Belt and Road advantages and says the bank must expand and focus more on the environment

On Sunday morning (29) in the Chinese capital, Beijing, the president of the New Development Bank (NDB), Brazilian economist Dilma Rousseff, received the Friendship Medal, the highest honor awarded by the Chinese state. Rousseff is the second Latin American to receive the medal, after former Cuban president Raúl Castro.

The honor was created in 2016 and is awarded to those who make outstanding contributions to China's socialist modernization by promoting exchanges and boosting cooperation between the Asian giant and foreign countries. Rousseff was the 12th foreigner to receive the medal. Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first foreigner to be awarded, in 2018. Earlier this year, a similar recognition awarded to foreign experts, the Chinese Government Friendship Award, was presented to Evandro de Carvalho Menezes, a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation Law School, and José Raimundo Coelho, former president of the Brazilian Space Agency.

Rousseff spoke during the ceremony in the Great Hall of the People, the building used for sessions of the National People's Assembly, welcoming of presidents, among other ceremonies and activities. She praised both the Chinese government and President Xi Jinping – whom she called a “true champion of international cooperation and a strong advocate of multilateralism” – for their governance and contributions to global development.

“China's commitment to reform and opening up has not only lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty but has also contributed significantly to global economic growth and stability,” she told an audience of several of China's top leaders, military personnel, students and representatives from various fields.

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